California To File Separate Suit On Immigration Protections

(AP) - California's attorney general says a separate lawsuit he plans to file over the Trump administration's plan to end protections for young immigrants will mirror the legal arguments made in a suit already filed by 15 states and the District of Columbia.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, said Wednesday he is going ahead with his own lawsuit because one in four participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program lives in California and the state will suffer the greatest harm from its termination. He says he'll file the suit soon.

Becerra says he's been talking with fellow attorneys general for months about what to do if DACA is terminated and that the legal grounds of his case will be similar to the one filed earlier in the day by the other states.

That lawsuit calls the move by Trump an unconstitutional culmination of his commitments to punish people with Mexican roots.

Becerra says ending DACA will harm the people it protects along with California's economy and higher education system.